


Confined

by entanglednow



Category: Primeval
Genre: Camping, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-09
Updated: 2007-07-09
Packaged: 2017-11-10 07:06:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick and Stephen work out new boundaries for their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confined

Stephen had long ago come to a simple conclusion about the man who'd decided what the acceptable measurements for a two man tent should be. He'd clearly been military for a start, he'd most likely been disciplined, neat, methodical, able to slot his body into a mathematically designated space and remain there until needed. He'd probably been the sort of man who ironed his socks, he'd clearly also never been married.

He most certainly hadn't been a evolutionary zoologist, because two thirds of the inside of their tent is currently being taken up by maps, charts, books and Nick, and Nick's elbows.

It's not quite dark but the rain has driven them back to the tents. It had only taken it a few minutes to obliterate the footprints they'd been investigating. But with any luck there are better signs deeper in the woods, signs they can make a start on tracking back to an anomaly tomorrow.

This is the first time they've been in such close quarters since Helen's revelation tore great chunks out of their relationship. The first time they've had to share space, and though there's no tension there is a careful awareness of personal space. An atmosphere that sometimes sways a fraction closer to professionalism than friendship. But Nick has a right to be angry, more than a right, and Stephen is perfectly willing to take whatever recriminations Nick thinks he deserves; but so far there's just been this quiet, careful, efficiency.

They can't avoid each other, the work they're doing is too important, and Nick appears unwilling to just let him go. But now they're not so much working together as confined. By both the collection of giant footprints and the soaking expanse of forest they've been found in. They both seem to be reacting to the closeness the same way, carefully pretending that there's nothing to be concerned about.

There's still trust, even if it is frayed and grudging. It gives Stephen hope that they aren't broken, that Helen hasn't destroyed everything with her vindictive parting gift. That maybe Nick is willing to let their relationship knit together again in the background.

Abby and Connor are sharing a tent fifteen feet to their left, and Stephen knows for a fact that Abby has made a wall down the middle of it using boots and cameras.

Nick and Stephen have made a slightly less material wall down the middle of theirs, with caution and uncertainty and routine. Nick himself has been behind his map for the last twenty minutes, occasionally grumbling to himself and folding parts of it over. There isn't enough space to put it down anywhere without one of them leaving, and Stephen is risking a papercut to the face if he doesn't at least grab hold of one of the ends.

He does so, folds up half of it.

"What's the scale of this thing?"

"I haven't a bloody clue," Nick says honestly. He seems to give up, unfolds the right edge two more times. "Hold that."

Stephen puts a hand on it and shifts it on the floor until they can see most of where they're supposed to be looking.

"Is this the right part of the forest?" He asks, because they hadn't realised this place was so huge when they'd first turned up.

"This is the most visited, so we don't know for sure, anything that happens outside this area no one has a clue about." Nick picks up one of his books and puts it down on a boundary line. "Though this map hasn't been updated in nearly ten years."

"Do we have an approximate area of dispersal?"

"We've got reports of missing cats from the surrounding villages." 'Cat eating dinosaurs,' Stephen can't help but think and wonders whether that narrows down their search at all.

"Well Ryan did say to call if we had proof of large predators."

"Which we don't," Nick points out truthfully. "I've marked out the discoveries the disappearances and the footprints." He pulls an edge of the map up so Stephen get close enough to see too and it's almost too dark already, the rain turning the sky navy and purple in it's quest to soak the ground, and all he can see is the white of the map and curves of blue and green. Before Nick would have leant over the back of his shoulder to get closer, would have pointed under the edge of his arm, descriptions curling their way across the edge of Stephen's jaw. He might even have laid a hand against Stephen's in his frustrated quest for point of origin. They were always just on the line of appropriate, and sometimes...god sometimes maybe just a fraction over it. Because they could, because that had been the sort of relationship they had.

Now it's almost impossible to miss the absence of ease, the careful distance that hasn't existed between them for years. It's strange enough to be jarring, but raw enough not to comment on.

He's barely thought it before Nick slides away, map folding even while he grumbles to himself.

"Tomorrow," he says simply, in a tone of voice that does more than suggest. "We'll look tomorrow."

***  


Stephen drifts awake a handful of times in the night, but they are vague, blurred snatches of memory that register simply as cold, rain stuttered darkness.

It's completely black, Stephen can't see a thing, but he can feel the warm slide of breath against his neck and the curve of his jaw. Both of them have shifted, which isn't surprising because it's cold and they are the only heat sources in the tent.

He's only half awake under the endless fall of rain, and the hair under his nose is all smoke and dust, laid over the deeper, far more familiar, smell that is entirely Nick. It's warmer than the tent floor, or the roll of his jumper and he suspects that's why he turns his face down into it. There's too much history between them and it's easy to forget he's not supposed to. It's just easy, far too easy, even when he remembers. He closes his eyes and he's certain it's only for a fraction of a second. The pace of the rain doesn't change and yet something is different.

There's a shiver of breath against his open mouth where Nick has turned, startling that it seemed to happened between one blink and the next, and it strikes Stephen that they are suddenly very close. This becomes more important when he catches the flicker of movement in the darkness that can be nothing other than a blink. He's not the only one who's awake, awake and silent.

The rain is quieter now, but still there, a rush that manages to be louder in here than outside, and Stephen lets it hypnotise him while he watches Nick in the darkness. While he waits, waits for something....

>

The darkness deepens under the shift of clothing and then there's pressure against Stephen's mouth, a warm curve that slides over his lower lip, behind a soft noise which might be a sigh. It still takes a long confused second for him to realise that Nick is kissing him.

"Stephen," Nick says quietly, and Stephen has no idea what it is, question? Apology? Or just the sound of his name.

He can't bring himself to speak though, can't say anything at all. Nick takes his silence for assent because he's kissing him again, and there's nothing reserved about it, this one is fierce and assured and there is a hand tangling in the back of Stephen's hair. He opens his mouth under the first push and just lets Nick take. It's rough and untidy and far too intent to be a whim. Stephen has shared body heat creatively before, has even done it with other men but Nick is...Nick is different. He slowly, reluctantly, pulls his mouth away.

"You don't do this, god Nick you don't do this." He's not even sure what he means, the fact that he's male, the fact that this seems like spontaneous madness, or just the fact that it's them. They definitely didn't do this, at least they hadn't when they were friends, and Stephen can't - doesn't want to ask what this means. Because this turns everything they are and everything they were inside out and upside down, and Stephen knows it.

He's worried that this means they _are_ broken, or something very much like it, something that means Nick feels free to lay a hand against his throat and push rough kisses against his mouth. But he can't stop him, can't even think about stopping him when his hands are almost desperate against the sides of his waist, pushing under his t-shirt and touching bare skin. Nick inhales sharply through his nose.

Stephen has used up all his common sense and he just wants, but this is too important, Nick is too important and he can't - he won't break them like this no matter how much he wants it.

Stephen would give a lot of things for this but not...not Nick himself, not for just this and nothing else.

"Nick," he says helplessly, and his voice sounds raw. "God, please don't do this to punish me, I can't -." Nick goes completely still at the words, hand catching Stephen's chin and pulling it down far enough that they're breathing into each other

"Shut up," Nick says softly against the side of his mouth, thumb drifting over the uneven edge of his jaw. "I want you," is breathed into the curve of his ear. "I've always wanted you."

Stephen swears under the words, twists his head until he can look at Nick, whose fierce expression he can just make out in the dark.

"Now for god's sake will you touch me," Nick says. Stephen inhales sharply, pushes his hands up under Nick's shirt and he's impossibly warm, everywhere they slide, Nick's skin twitching under him, pushing into every gap and crushing them together. But it's not enough, not nearly enough and he lifts his hands, threads his fingers through Nick's hair and pulls.

They're not broken they never were, there was never conflict between them just this, red and sharp under every moment, so carefully buried that it's become habit not to push it, not to acknowledge it...or act on it.

But now they have...they both have and Stephen isn't sure he could put this back in a box if he wanted to.

The issue of personal space has become moot, there is a thigh shoved between Stephen's legs pulling them close enough that questions of intent have been answered as well. There is a hand laid flat on the jumping flesh of his stomach, and when Nick shifts over far enough to resettle his weight on top of Stephen he stops asking, stops questioning.

He doesn't know Nick like this, This was the only part he never knew, the only part he thought he'd never have. But Nick is hard against the edge of his thigh and every pull of his hands draws Stephen closer, tempts him into pressing in, pushing against that weight and listening to the sharp inhale that makes the kiss wet and broken.

Nick's mouth slides over his jaw, leaving Stephen staring into the blackness of the tent roof, mouth wet and stinging. Neither of them have shaved in three days and Stephen is by far going to be the worse off because of this. He wants, God he wants whatever Nick wants. All he has to do is ask, demand...no that's a lie and he knows it, all he has to do is take.

Nick is swearing softly against his jaw, voice thick and deep enough that Stephen is pushed into sliding a hand into his dirty blonde hair and dragging him back up, and there's no resistance, just a hard press of mouth. Nick's hand slides up, curls round the edge of his chest and pulls hard enough that their mouths jar apart and Nick is looking at him, weighing whatever expression is currently on his face

When his hands start dragging Stephens shirt up his chest he swears under Nick's mouth and lets him, bends under him like he has no bones, because how can he not when Nick looks at him like that. This is nothing like he'd thought Nick would be, it's random and messy, but God Stephen wants it, wants it badly enough that all he does is fist his hands in Nick's t-shirt and drag it over his head.

He drops it down Nick's back pulls him down far enough to kiss again, and they slide bare against each other, hot and unfamiliar but new enough to have them both reaching for skin. Stephen's hands are open on Nick's back, pulling hard enough that he's going to leave fucking marks. But Nick is no better, fingers tight on Stephen's bare waist, only releasing long enough to slide up and pull until Stephen kisses him again.

It's too much and Stephen isn't breathing when he should, and can't breathe when he wants to, which just makes everything harder to control, impossible to want to.

"Please," he begs against the side of Nick's face, and there's a sharp burst of air against his throat. They've been pushing there ever since Nick kissed him, pushing towards something harder, something hotter, and after a pause Nick slides a hand between them and opens Stephen's jeans. He tugs the thickness of the waistband down and pushes his hand inside, and it's so warm, wrapping carefully round him until Stephen groans, twitches, the side of his face pushed against Nick's.

"Oh God," Stephen's voice breaks on the words, hands curling over Nick's shoulders, pulling down.

"Tell me you want this," Nick says roughly and Stephen's whole body jerks under the words.

"You can have anything, anything you want," Stephen manages against the side of Nick's face and Nick groans into his hair like it's a surprise, like he didn't know. Like it hadn't been obvious from the beginning.

Nick lifts his hips and Stephen digs his hands in the front of his jeans tugging the button open and the zip down. Nick's cock is a solid weight against the back of his fingers, and he can't resist turning his hand and holding it, pulling a noise that he's never heard before out of Nick's throat and then smothering it when he drags him down far enough to kiss.

When Nick resettles on top of him he's heavy in a completely different way, a way that makes Stephen inhale, makes him groan his name.

Nick shifts and Stephen can feel him pushing his jeans down, shoving them off to rest untidily among the boots and books and it's beyond strange to have Nick's weight against him, smooth and hard in places Stephen has never touched, and he wants to touch, god he wants to. He curls his hands round Nick's waist and pulls and the groan that shudders out of Nick shakes their mouths apart.

"Fuck," Nick says simply and pushes down, makes everything intense and Stephen doesn't protest when Nick's long hands fold into his jeans and drag them down too, toss them empty against the side of the tent.

It's entirely different out of their clothes. Hot and close and Stephen thinks he might suffocate and doesn't care because Nick is just lines of warmth and sensation against him. Every push is dry and awkward and a breath away from uncomfortable but it's also brutally delicious. Stephen drops a hand, catches hold of Nick's hips and pulls him in harder.

There's no reason they shouldn't be doing this and every reason they should, but it feels insanely sudden, unfamiliar and something very close to forbidden. Which makes everything harder, makes it tight and hurried in a way he doesn't want to slow down.

He wants to pull again, wants to demand, and he's groaning Nick's name, nails sharp in his hips. Nick kisses him and it's hard enough to make his jaw ache, hard enough to push his head into the tent floor, Stephen shoves his hands into Nick's hair and fights back.

They both have to pull away to breathe, though Nick doesn't go far, he pulls Stephen's head back, drags his mouth over Stephen's throat, and the groan that falls out of him is broken. It makes Nick's hips shove hard against his, hands sliding on the tent floor, teeth sharp and hard in Stephen's neck.

Everything falls apart in one slick wet moment, it's too hot to breathe, and Nick is too slippery to hang on to. Stephen has no idea how hard he's digging his fingers in when he comes but Nick is groaning into his neck and everything is wet and close and it takes such a beautifully long time before he stops twitching. When Nick slides his head round and kisses him it's shaky and lazy and nothing like their kisses from before.

A groan pulls them apart, leaves them just breathing into each other, foreheads pressed together, cooling down in ways which are going to be uncomfortable very shortly.

It still takes them a long moment to slide away from each other in the dark

Stephen can hear his own breathing, can hear Nick's, the rain outside has stopped and it's suddenly warm and strangely quiet.

Nick hasn't moved far, arm pressed against the length of Stephen's. It's as close as they've been in three weeks. It's closer than they've ever been, and Stephen can't speak, can't risk saying anything that will push this moment in a direction he doesn't want to go.

The silence doesn't get oppressive, though it does eventually get cold. Nick grunts something very much like complaint and drags a blanket from against the side of the tent wall.

He covers them both and Stephen surprises himself by shifting just a little against Nick's side. Nick grumbles something that means nothing, but he can't not notice that Stephen is now breathing into his shoulder.

Eventually Nick sighs, shifts his arm until his hand is laid against the top of Stephen's head. Something inside Stephen unclenches and relaxes for the first time in almost a month.  



End file.
